Presenting Our Kids Mature In Christ, Part I: Scripture

There is nothing more important to us at swanniehouse, than presenting our kids mature in Christ. We live in a country as well as a time in history, where opportunities are abundant. How do we make the best decisions with how to spend our days and years with the little ones entrusted to us by God? The best guide we have found is listening to what God says in His word and trying our best to follow His lead. We are dividing our posts on presenting our kids mature in Christ into a series. This enormous task has many facets to cover. The first we are going to tackle is keeping the teaching of scripture prominent in our homes.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9 tells us that parents are responsible for the spiritual teaching of our children. We are commissioned to take every opportunity, all through out the day, to impress the truths of scripture on our children. The following are some ways we are striving to diligently teach God’s commands to our kids.

Devotions:Nearly every day, after dinner, we read God’s word and discuss it. The most self-disciplined swannie in our home has kept us up to the task (thank you Swannie Dad, we appreciate you!). We have used several different devotional books or websites and have read directly from scripture. Ten to fifteen minutes a day set aside to read and discuss God’s word means 70-105 minutes of truth impressing a week! If a child is too young to sit, we let her color or play. We have provided notebooks for all of the kids to take notes or doodle if they like as well.

Quiet Time: One of my favorite parts of the day is right after breakfast. We set the kitchen timer (usually around 20 minutes) and we are quiet. The big kids and I read from our Bibles and journal. Little ones scroll through Christian board books or paint or color. After finishing our quiet time, we often share what God taught us through His word.

Scripture Memory: As a kid, I remember reading a portion of scripture out loud each week at church. We were given prizes when we memorized verses. In junior high we went through a serious study of scripture, memorizing large portions. Repetition of scripture has made a colossal difference in my life. We have put together a scripture memorization package for our family to cover. Doing this over the past three years has been a great encouragement. We set goals to complete different passages during different time frames. At the end, we celebrate with a fun prize.

Over the past six months, our kids have memorized; Matthew 7, Psalm 23, Isaiah 9:6-7, Isaiah 7:14, I Peter 2:19-25, Isaiah 53. They have earned fun gifts as a reward. We simply read the passage once every night during our devotion time. (When I had all pre-schoolers, I made a chart of small verses to memorize and the kids got candy when they said the verses to me each week. This time around, our 3 year old has heard the big kids reading this every night and she knows these huge chunks of scripture as well.)

In-depth study: Every week, we set aside one evening to cover a more in-depth study of God’s word. Over the past couple of years we have been working on, The Picture Smart Bible. Through this study we are giving our kids the “big picture” as to how scripture works together. It would be easy to let other activities take us away, so we strongly guard this time on our calendar.

CSP (Coffee, Scripture, Prayer): My kids love coffee. They seriously, LOVE it. Some time ago, we decided to incorporate coffee with special family time. Every Saturday morning, we make a big pot and after breakfast dishes are done, we move into the family room with our Bibles and a big bin of toys for Cupcake. We take our time with our devotions, asking questions, laughing, praying, drinking coffee and enjoying one another and Jesus.

Church attendance: We are thrilled to have found a church faithful to God’s word where we all learn from our pastor. All seven of us worship together every Sunday. We participate in corporate worship and our kids are part of the full life of the body of Christ. Our three youngest children have never gone to nursery and have sat next to me in the service. Helpful tip: When they were babies they would nurse and sleep all the way through the services. After that stage, I introduced dum-dums and ring pops. It doesn’t bother me in the least that every time Troy Dobbs gets up front, Cupcake looks at me and says, “Can I have a sucker now?” She can equate the teaching of God’s word with sweetness, as it is honey for our souls.

This pamphlet is not from our church (though I know from our pastor’s words that he welcomes children in our services). I love this sentiment and would love to see it true in every worship setting:

Seeds of Worship: One of the easiest ways to memorize scripture is through song. Seeds of worship are a wonderful tool for scripture memory. The songs are not the typical, “Is this CD almost over?” feeling for mom and dad. The melodies are catchy and fun.

Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting has been a beautiful tool to not only build a necessary life skill, but keeps scripture in front of our kids while learning it.

We hope you are encouraged to take one area above and incorporate it into your home. Please let us know if you try something, or if you would like some help getting start. We would love to hear what other families are doing to be faithful in teaching your children scripture to present them fully mature in Christ.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. ~Colossians 1: 28